Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index 16-bit means using words containing sixteen bits. This adjective often refers to the number of bits used internally by a computer's CPU. E.g. "The Intel 8086 is a sixteen-bit processor". Its external data bus or address bus may be narrower. The term may also refer to the size of an instruction in the computer's instruction set or to any other item of data. See also: 16-bit application 32-bit 32-bit application This article (or an earlier version of it) contains material from FOLDOC, used with permission. Update as needed. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.